Great bales of cotton rise up from the ground

SCENES FROM A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF MISSISSIPPI

by Natasha Trethewey

1. King Cotton, 1907

From every corner of the photograph, flags wave down

the main street in Vicksburg. Stacked to form an arch,

the great bales of cotton rise up from the ground

like a giant swell, a wave of history flooding the town.

When Roosevelt arrives -- a parade -- the band will march,

and from every street corner, flags wave down.

Words on a banner, Cotton, America's King, have the sound

of progress. The is two years before the South's countermarch --

the great bolls of cotton, risen up from the ground,

infested with boll weevils -- a plague, biblical, all around.

Now, negro children ride the bales, clothes stiff with starch.

From up high, in the photograph, they wave flags down

for the President who will walk through the arch, bound

for the future, his back to us. The children, on their perch --

those great bales of cotton rising up from the ground --

Stare out at us. Cotton surrounds them, a swell, a great mound

bearing them up, back toward us. From the arch,

from every corner of the photograph, flags wave down,

and great bales of cotton rise up from the ground.

2. Glyph, Aberdeen 1913

The child's head droops as if in sleep.

Stripped to the waist, in profile, he's balanced

on the man's lap.  The man, gaunt in his overalls,

cradles the child's thin arm -- the sharp elbow, white

signature of skin an bone -- pulls it forward

to show the deformity -- the humped back, curve

of spine -- punctuating the routine hardships 

of their lives: how the child must follow him

into the fields, haunting the long hours

slumped beside a sack, his body asking

how much cotton? or in the kitchen, leaning,

into the icebox, how much food? or

kneeling beside him at the church house,

why, Lord, why? They pose as if to say

Look, this is the outline of suffering:

the child shouldering it -- a mound

like dirt heaped on a grave.

3. Flood

They have arrived on the back

of the swollen river, the barge

dividing it, their few belongings 

clustered about their feet. Above them

the National Guard hunkers

on the levee; rifles tight in their fists,

they block the path to high ground.

One group of black refugees,

the caption tells us, was ordered

to sing their passage onto land,

like a chorus of prayer -- their tongues

the tongues of dark bells. Here,

the camera finds them still. Posed

as if for a school-day portrait,

children lace fingers in their laps.

One boy gestures allegiance, right hand

over the heart's charged beating.

The great river all around, the barge

invisible beneath their feet, they fix

on what's before them: the opening

in the sight of a rifle; the camera's lens;

the muddy cleft between barge and dry land --

all of it aperture, the captured moment's 

chasm in time.  Here, in the angled light

of 1927, they are refugees from history:

the barge has brought them this far;

they are waiting to disembark.

4. You are late

The sun is high and the child's shadow,

almost fully beneath her, touches the sole

of her bare foot on concrete. Even though

it must be hot, she takes the step; her goal

to read is the subject of this shot -- a book

in her hand, the library closed, the door

just out of reach.  Stepping up, she must look

at the two signs, read them slowly once more.

The first one, in pale letters, barely shows

against the white background.  Though she will read

Greenwood Public Library for Negroes,

the other, bold letters on slate, will lead

her away, out of the frame, a finger 

pointing left.  I want to caller, say wait.

But this is history: she can't linger.

She'll read the sign that I read: You Are Late.